Smith-Bey v. Hospital Adm'r

• Decision Date: 08 March 1988
• Docket Number: P,No. 86-2160,SMITH-BE,86-2160
• Parties: Albert Earlelaintiff-Appellant, v. HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR, et al., Defendants-Appellees. *
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 751

841 F.2d 751

Albert Earle SMITH-BEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

^*

No. 86-2160.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued April 23, 1987.

Decided March 8, 1988.

Michael L. Corrado, Mayer, Brown & Platt, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellant.

Gerald A. Coraz, Asst. U.S. Atty., U.S. Atty. John Daniel Tinder, Indianapolis, Ind., for defendants-appellees.

Before CUMMINGS, COFFEY and MANION, Circuit Judges.

MANION, Circuit Judge.

Albert Earle Smith-Bey appeals the district court's dismissal of his eighth amendment claims against various employees of the United States Penitentiary at Terre Haute, Indiana. We reverse and remand.

I.

Smith-Bey is a federal prisoner currently incarcerated in the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas. On April 2, 1986, he filed a petition for leave to proceed in forma pauperis in an action against various officials and staff employed at the United States Penitentiary at Terre Haute for injuries he allegedly received while incarcerated there. Smith-Bey filed a two-count complaint along with the petition.

According to the complaint, Smith-Bey was "assaulted on numerous occasions" while at Terre Haute and received inadequate medical treatment for the wounds he received during the assaults. The complaint, however, only gives details on two of the assaults. Smith-Bey specifically alleges that in June of 1984 he was assaulted in the "orientation unit" by an inmate and "cut about the face, arms, chest and right shoulder." Despite the fact that the wound to his face was bleeding "profusely" and in need of "stitches," a physician's assistant merely gave Smith-Bey an ice pack for the wound. Smith-Bey claims that this alleged mistreatment constituted the "unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain."

Smith-Bey also claims that "between the end of June and the middle of July, 1984," the correctional staff intentionally set him up "to be killed" by placing him in a cell with a "psychopath." The "psychopath" subsequently assaulted Smith-Bey and broke Smith-Bey's nose. Smith-Bey was taken to the prison hospital. There, a physician's assistant only gave Smith-Bey an ice pack to place on his nose. Smith-Bey was then placed in disciplinary segregation. Ten minutes after being placed in disciplinary segregation, Smith-Bey was sent back to the hospital because his nose kept bleeding. At that time, the physician's assistant told Smith-Bey that his nose was broken. The physician's assistant then removed a piece of "splintered bone" from Smith-Bey's nose. Smith-Bey was not sent to a doctor. Smith-Bey also alleges that the treatment of this wound constituted the "unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain."

The defendants named in the complaint are the "unknown" Hospital Administrator, "unknown" physician's assistants, and "unknown" correctional staff who were employed at the facility at the time the challenged actions occurred. The "unknown physician's assistants" are defined broadly to include all persons who worked at the prison hospital at the Terre Haute facility. The "unknown correctional staff" are defined as those who were employed as "Captain of Guard, Chief Correctional Supervisor's, Correctional Supervisor's [and] Senior Officer Specialist's" at the facility. Smith-Bey sued the defendants in their individual capacities.

On June 4, 1986, Smith-Bey filed a motion for appointment of counsel. In an affidavit filed in support of the motion, Smith-Bey claimed that he needed appointed counsel because he could not afford an attorney and he could not adequately prepare his case without counsel.

In an order dated June 6, 1986, the district court dismissed Smith-Bey's complaint as frivolous under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1915(d) ¹ and denied him leave to proceed in forma pauperis. The court also denied Smith-Bey's motion for appointment of counsel. The district court based all these decisions on the ground that Smith-Bey's complaint failed to allege facts showing that he was entitled to relief under the Eighth Amendment. The district court held that Smith-Bey's claims based on the allegedly inadequate medical treatment he received failed to state a claim for relief because he alleged only medical malpractice, not deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs. See Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 105-06, 97 S.Ct. 285, 291-92, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976). The district court rejected Smith-Bey's assault claims because "nothing in the complaint ... suggests [that] the defendant correctional officials knew that plaintiff would be assaulted or placed him [in the cell with the 'psychopathic' inmate] for that purpose."

On June 24, 1986, eighteen days after the district court denied his petition and dismissed his complaint, Smith-Bey filed a "Motion For Review, Reconsideration, Or In The Alternative, Leave To Amend Complaint To Conform." Smith-Bey's motion attempted to achieve one of two results. First, citing Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 92 S.Ct. 594, 30 L.Ed.2d 652 (1972) (per curiam), Smith-Bey requested that the court reconsider its June 6, 1986 order in light of the less stringent standards applied to pleadings of pro se prisoners. In the alternative, Smith-Bey sought the court's permission to submit a new complaint that would set forth sufficient facts to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.

In an order dated July 1, 1986, the district court denied Smith-Bey's motion. Referring to its June 6, 1986 order as a "judgment" dismissing Smith-Bey's action, the district court held that any attempt by Smith-Bey to file an amended complaint was untimely under either Fed.R.Civ.P. 15 or Fed.R.Civ.P. 59. Because Smith-Bey's motion was filed more than ten days after the "judgment" of June 6, 1986, the district court deemed Smith-Bey's motion to be a Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b) motion. As Smith-Bey failed to make out any of the grounds for relief from judgment under Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b), the district court denied the motion. This appeal ensued.

II.

A. Appellate Jurisdiction

Before addressing the merits we must first determine our jurisdiction. Under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291, appellate courts have jurisdiction over final decisions of the district courts. "In general, a decision is final for purposes of Sec. 1291 if it ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the district court to do but execute the judgment." Baltimore Orioles, Inc. v. Major League Baseball Players Ass'n, 805 F.2d 663, 666 (7th Cir.1986), cert. denied., --- U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 1593, 94 L.Ed.2d 782 (1987). Thus, the dismissal of a complaint with prejudice is a final appealable order under Sec. 1291. See Reytblatt v. Denton, 812 F.2d 1042, 1043-44 (7th Cir.1987).

Smith-Bey and the government both assert that jurisdiction is proper under Sec. 1291. They disagree, however, over which order of the district court is the "final decision" of the district court. The government agrees with the district court that the June 6 order was a final judgment against Smith-Bey. On the other hand, Smith-Bey argues that no "final judgment" complying with the requirements of Fed.R.Civ.P. 58 was ever entered in this case. See Brekke v. Morrow, 840 F.2d 4 (7th Cir.1988) (Rule 58 applies to in forma pauperis dismissals under Sec. 1915(d)). Smith-Bey does contend, however, that the July 1 order was a final appealable decision because it effectively terminated the litigation, leaving him with no choice but to file the present appeal. We agree with Smith-Bey.

To constitute a final judgment under Rule 58, the judgment must be entered on a separate document and must terminate the litigation. As this circuit explained in Reytblatt v. Denton:

The final judgment in a case should be complete and self-contained. It must set forth the relief to which the prevailing party is entitled or the fact that the plaintiff has been denied all relief. It should not incorporate some other document or contain legal reasoning. A Rule 58 judgment for this case, in which the district judge apparently meant to dismiss the complaint under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), should say: 'Defendant's motion to dismiss is granted, and the complaint is dismissed with prejudice.' That indicates both the ruling and the disposition--the latter being the more important.

812 F.2d at 1043-44 (citations omitted).

Here, the district court's June 6 order fails to constitute a final judgment in two respects. First, judgment is not "set forth on a separate document" as required by Fed.R.Civ.P. 58. The only document entered on the docket was the court's order of June 6, 1986. This does not satisfy the separate document requirement. See Azeez v. Fairman, 795 F.2d 1296, 1297 (7th Cir.1986) ("Rule 58 ... says that the judgment must appear on a separate piece of paper--separate, that is, from the court's opinion."). As this circuit has stressed on several occasions, the separate document requirement is a mechanical rule that serves a very important purpose: it allows litigants to know with certainty when the time to file post-judgment motions and to appeal begins to run. Otherwise, a litigant is forced to guess or to do legal research as to whether a final decision has been rendered.

Second, even absent the separate document requirement, the district court's June 6 order could not be considered a final judgment. The order merely stated that it denied petitioner's in forma pauperis petition and dismissed the complaint. It did not set forth the fact that petitioner had been denied all relief, see Reytblatt, 812 F.2d at 1044, or in any other way indicate "that the district court had concluded that 'the action could not be saved by an amendment of the complaint which the plaintiff could reasonably be expected to make....' " Benjamin v. United States, 833 F.2d 669, 672 (7th Cir.1987) (quoting Marshall v. Sawyer, 301 F.2d 639, 643 (9th Cir.1962)).

In treating its June 6 order as a "final judgment," the district court apparently...